Monday, May 26, 2014

It is time for our young people to have fun, connect with family and friends, and stay busy with camps, sports, vacations, and other summer activities.

It is also an important time in their reading lives. We want to give them all of the tools, encouragement, and choices that we can to keep them reading throughout the summer months.

One way that we can do that within our school community is through the eBooks that we have in MackinVIA. With our students having access to hundreds of wonderful nonfiction and fiction eBooks, they have our digital library at their fingertips all summer long.

There are lots of different things we have done with our eBook collection over the last two years.

One of my favorite summer reading programs was when we created the Wanted....Readers For The Summer In MackinVIA program. The kids read all kinds of eBooks about animals throughout the summer. We used Edmodo to talk about the eBooks too. At the end of the summer, we celebrated summer reading by inviting the zoo to the public library in Van Meter. It was great fun.

Thursday, May 22, 2014

A few months ago my friend Donna Gephart and I talked about ways we could connect our students.

Donna is an author and teaches high school students in Southern Florida. I was going to connect them with our elementary students in Iowa.

She came up with the idea of having her students write advice for the younger friends they were going to meet at Van Meter. This was perfect timing with the school years coming to an end and our students moving onto middle school next year, and several of hers graduating.

Today we Skyped twice and connected our two schools.

Donna's students took turn reading the advice they wrote and talking with the fifth graders.

We all loved what they had to say...what amazing young people!

Our students also shared a little advice too...even though they didn't know what advice they could give to the older students.

As we finished with our Skype, I created a Padlet for all of our students to share advice with one another.

I thought this would be a great digital space and a little more comfortable for all of our students to share their advice.

Saturday, May 17, 2014

There was a brown paper box on the table in the Makerspace last Tuesday when I walked in. As I got closer, I got super happy because I saw that it was from my wonderful friends at Chronicle Books!

I opened the box to find three new beautiful books to share with the little people in our library. Every one of the books that they publish is just as perfect as the last.....always a special treat for all of us.

I love this statement about Chronicle Books' objective because it sums them up perfectly....

Chronicle Books' objective is to create and distribute exception publishing that's instantly recognizable for its spirit, creativity, and value.

Each of these books come with Press Releases that are so fun to read and share with the kids too. I always just stick this in the back of the book in case anyone wants to read it again.

Their website is also a cool place to go!

Chronicle Books is definitely one of my favorite places to find new books, amazing authors and illustrators, and all kinds of news about children's and YA literature.

I just love Chronicle Books YouTube Channel.....It is filled with all kinds of wonderful book trailers, authors interviews, and other things you will love too.

This one for Lately Lily is adorable and was fun to show the kids in the library as I shared this book last month.

Thank you to my dear friends at Chronicle Books.....You are such special people and are making the best difference in the lives of our children, young people, teachers, librarians, and others around the world.

A few weeks ago we shared the 5th graders nonfiction eBooks that they created.

After they added them to the Padlet below, I shared it on Twitter and Donovan Hall from KICS Primary School in Khartoum, Sudan saw my tweet. I was very excited to see that his students were reading our students eBooks. Both of the groups of young people were creating projects focusing on global warming and the earth. Donovan and I thought it would be wonderful if all of us could connect in a GHO to share with each other.

And so this week we did.....Our two schools in Iowa and Sudan connected, shared, and learned together.

Kate Goodwin and Aubrey Stafford, our fifth grade teachers, brought all of the kids to the library. We started our GHO at 8:30am CST.....It was 5:30pm in the Sudan. Donovan had his students come back to school, while ours started their day connecting.

We listened to amazing projects and presentations from our new friends.

Our fifth graders also enjoyed sharing the projects and work they had done within their classrooms. Everyone was so impressed with what they had created.

What a special time it was.

To continue the conversation between our two schools we created a FlipGrid asking the question,

Today, the first graders shared these with the kindergarteners. It was a perfect way for them to learn from all of the students (see all the pictures below of our fun today).

It was also a wonderful way to share with parents, teachers, our community, and with the world.

I loved hearing them tell me all about their projects this week. They were all very passionate about what they had learned and created. Each one took a lot of pride in their work and sharing it with all of us.